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Lauren & Jeff

Susan Catling

When you meet on a boat and it’s love at first sight, a nautical wedding is probably in the cards. Lauren McCarthy was on-Island for a girls’ weekend and a mutual friend suggested that his buddy Jeff Lynch would be happy to take them on a boat ride in Menemsha. He was, they did, and the rest is history.

Lauren grew up in Wilmington, Massachusetts, and her father’s family lives on the Vineyard year round, so she was a frequent summer visitor. Jeff is a Menemsha native and commercial fisherman who spent his younger days fishing out of Menemsha harbor. (These days, having decamped to Boston, he runs the catering company Boston Raw Bar.)

Lauren chose what she calls a "Menemsha fishing theme" for their wedding at the West Chop Club, using a swordfish motif to pay tribute to the harpooner statue at the beach and to Jeff’s fishing career. She used Jeff’s actual fishing gear, located swordfish place cards and a cake topper on Etsy, and found swordfish ties online.

Avoiding more traditional color palettes, Lauren, a technical recruiter for Amazon Robotics with an interest in fashion, selected black, white, metallic gold, and bright yellow for the wedding. “I see too many navy/striped/nautical themed weddings, so I wanted to put my own spin on it with a bold, modern flare,” she said. “We both love the color gold – our wedding rings are gold – and thought that bright yellow would really add a pop and make it a lot more modern and different.” Bright, fun flowers from Morrice Florist tied the look together.

Lauren said perhaps her favorite moment of the day was the father/daughter dance. Her dad, Skip McCarthy, had been in the hospital and was discharged just before the wedding. They weren't sure he was going to make it to the wedding, let alone be able to perform a choreographed dance routine to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." Jeff's favorite moment invovled Skip, too: his father of the bride speech. But the couple also got a kick out of their Labradoodle, Brizo, walking down the aisle in a custom-made veil.

“Make it personal," Jeff and Lauren advised those contemplating their own Island wedding. "We stuck with our gut and did it exactly how we wanted it. No regrets at all. It was our perfect weekend.”